Tuesday, 4 August 2009

(This article was originally published in August 2009)Afghanistan has been invaded three times in its history.

The first was by the
British in 1840 on the pretext of securing the western borders of India. They met
fierce resistance. At the bloody battle
that followed in 1842 at Gandamak, the entire British Army of 16,500 (troops
and civilians) were wiped out (there was one single survivor a Dr. Brydon). Afghan casualties, mostly
Ghilzia tribesmen, are unknown. This first Afghan War should have provided a
clear lesson to the British authorities that whilst it may be relatively
straightforward to invade a country such as Afghanistan it is wholly
impracticable to occupy such a country or attempt to impose a government not
welcomed by the inhabitants. Sadly that lesson has never been learned.

The second invasion is
what was termed "the Russian Invasion". Few however know the facts leading to
this. We were led by the media to
believe that this was another move by Communist Russia in its aim of world
domination, but in fact Russia
got involved rather reluctantly. In 1979, Dr. Mohammed Naji-Bullah headed a
pro-Communist Government with the strong support of the majority of the people.
It got there, not by revolution, but by the will of the people.

The warlike Land Lords
and the fanatical Islamists the Muja-Hedin took up arms against Dr.
Naji-Bullah. The USA immediately contacted the Muja-Hedin (known as "The Moodge") and
supplied them through Pakistan
with masses of arms, equipment and military personnel on the ground. From 1982 to 1985 some 12,500 foreigners were
trained in bomb making, sabotage and urban guerrilla warfare in camps set up
inside Afghanistan
with the help of a slush fund of 500 million US dollars provided by the CIA. The Americans even went as far as to take
some of the leaders abroad for specialist training. (unconfirmed reports claim this included a
certain Osama Bin Laden)

Dr. Naji-Bullah knew
he stood no chance. Six times he
appealed to the Soviet Union for help.
Eventually the Soviets responded and Soviet tanks rolled across the
border. By this time it was too
late. The Muja-Hedin had control of all
the mountain passes and the Soviets suffered heavy losses. The Soviet tanks were virtually useless in
the extremely mountainous territory. In
1989 the Soviets withdrew. A deal was
brokered by the United Nations in 1992 whereby Dr. Naji-Bullah was allowed to
stay in power. However, in 1996, the
Taliban, with the help of American intelligence, captured Naji-Bullah and subjected
him to appalling torture. He was then
strung up by the neck for all to see, photographs appearing in British
newspapers on 27 September 1996. The
Americans played a vital part in the setting up a regime of which they paid the
terrible consequences on 11 September 2001.

George Bush was out
for revenge (haunted by his father's failures).
Afghanistan was the decreed target, despite the fact that the main
training grounds for Al Qaeda are not all in Afghanistan
but high in the mountains of Pakistan. The weak government of Pakistan are
almost powerless to do anything about this, having already been forced to do
deals with the Taliban. There is growing
dis-satisfaction with the government as the economic situation worsens. The
Taliban's violent militarism is spreading out from the sanctuaries along the
border and is beginning to penetrate to the heart of a once peaceful society.
The NATO campaign in Afghanistan
is fuelling the dis-satisfaction. The grim reality is that a nuclear armed
extremist state may emerge in Pakistan.

The Taliban in Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan are not connected in
any way, being entirely different tribes. This nails the lie, often repeated by
Gordon Brown that the war in Afghanistan
is to keep our streets safe. Al Qaeda
have established cells in 20 different countries and all our efforts should be
put into tracing and destroying this world-wide evil network.

In many ways, Afghanistan
remains little different from 1842. It
still contains primitive feudal systems, many in isolation high in the mountains
with little contact between them, and no contact at all possible during the six
months of winter. The Russians, on
withdrawal, said that to control Afghanistan would require two
million troops. Much has been made about
the recent drive by British troops in HelmandProvince
to drive the Taliban from one of its strongholds. This we are told has been
achieved, but as we all know with alarming loss of life. The area cleared is the size of the Isle of Wight, while thousands of square miles remain in Taliban
hands. The Taliban is a formidable enemy capable of mounting well co-ordinated
fire from all points of the compass.
During a siege, attacks often come three times in 24 hours. During the
most dangerous periods, soldiers have been forced to sleep standing up at their
battle positions. Outside the compound on patrol they are under constant threat
of ambush or face booby-traps, when often the enemy simply melts away. (see #1 below)

It is also doubtful
whether the cleared area can be held, what has happened in the past is that the
Taliban soon slink back into such an area.
The Taliban of course have the advantage of knowing every inch of the
territory, the native peoples are all Moslem and detest the invasion by
infidels who speak another language, despite how punitive the Taliban regime
may be. The military strategy used by
the Americans is now being challenged by their own Government. The lack of manpower has resulted in the
military calling for assistance from their heavy combers whenever direct
conflict with the Taliban is encountered. The effective ratio of this is 1
Taliban killed for every 40 civilians. The
Americans have also bombed 6 wedding and funeral processions, not quite the way
to win hearts and minds. Following the
wiping out by the Taliban of one of their outposts, the Americans are pulling
their troops back from their forward positions, and instead of going out and
hunting the Taliban are introducing a new strategy of protecting the civilian
population, a realisation that this is a war that can never be won. The choice is to continue a war without end or
find a way to withdraw now.

Our military however
are right to call for better equipment. It is pitiful to hear Gordon Brown and
his Labour colleagues claim that our troops have all the equipment they
need. The fact that the Government in Westminster are so uninformed was reflected right at the
beginning when British troops were first despatched to Afghanistan,
the then Defence Minister John Reid claiming that the troops may not even need
to fire a shot. From my own limited
military experience, I found the MOD to be so out of touch, their
incompetence being legend. Early in the war the MOD placed an order with the
Americans for the purchase of helicopters.
Unfortunately they forgot to say that they had to be air-worthy. Millions of pounds have since been spent on
these helicopters which have yet to reach the front. Bulk orders are made in
order to save money. Let's say, for
example, an order is made for 1,000 army jeeps.
No one seems to want to know however whether they will be suitable for
British roads, sands of the desert or the mountain passes of Afghanistan. In
every recent theatre of war to which our troops have been sent, equipment has
been inadequate.

Some of our top
military personnel have been outspoken enough to say that this is a war that
cannot be won, but are faced with the knowledge of the humiliation that will
follow a NATO/American withdrawal, and of the encouragement it would give to
seditionist elements throughout the world.
I have recently detected however some signs within the Westminster
Government that they have begun to look for a way out that does not look like
defeat, e.g. Ed Miliband's recent statement that the war cannot be won with
weaponry alone, and that we must approach moderate elements within the Taliban!

Meantime, our soldiers
are dying unnecessarily in Afghanistan.
We must do everything we can to expose the folly of this war, to end the
fighting and bring our troops home.

#2 I had a short military career and held the rank of Captain in the Royal Artillery- - -updated August 2013:As we now wait for the removal of Western troops, it is an interesting time to examine the current position, and to predict the future. First of all the use of drones by the Americans has seen deaths of many civilians rise considerably, thus forming a recruiting platform for the Taliban. Back in America the unpopularity of any war is linked to the number of casualties occurring among the troops, and the drones may have resulted in the reduction of troop deaths, but at what price in securing a lasting peace? Much has been said about the training by the allies of Afghan troops to fight the Taliban. We know however that the Taliban have infiltrated the police, military and other institutions. So as the troops leave, we see the corrupt Karzai Government on one side and the despotic Taliban on the other, who remain far from defeated. The future is not difficult to predict. The question remains what have we achieved, with the loss of so many lives? My article caption – "Afghanistan – War Without End" is as appropriate now as it was then.See also: More blogs by John Jappy

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About Me

After completing ‘Highers’ in school, I joined the Civil Service in Inverness in the Accountant and Comptroller General’s Branch. Several quick promotions took me to the Head Office in London, and further promotions to the General Accounting Division, with links to the Treasury. This involved me in the preparation of National Budgets.
I also was entrusted to handle the most confidential investment papers of Her Majesty the Queen and personally repaid to her the income tax deducted on these investments, which at that time the Monarch was not required to pay.
It was whilst working on Government finance that I became aware of the appalling waste of resources on weapons of mass destruction, which could never be used without causing the end of civilisation. On retiring from the Civil Service I joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), originally serving as Liaison Officer of the Highland Federation of twenty-two CND Groups. I was then elected National Convener of the Scottish Campaigns' Committee and served as a member of the Scottish National Executive. I am currently Vice President of Scottish CND.